La bahía de los ensueños

This was the first Clark Gable movie I ever remember seeing and I saw it in the old Marine Theatre in Brooklyn. Turned out also to be the last one Clark Gable got to see released as The Misfits was released after Gable's demise.

He's an honest to God Philadelphia lawyer who had a brother who deserted his wife and took off for Italy where he lived with another woman. The brother has died and Gable has gone to Italy to settle the estate.

The estate's one very tangible asset was the brother's son played very winningly by Marietto. Mom is deceased also and the boy is living with her sister and who wouldn't want an aunt who looked like Sophia Loren. It's a custody battle and the question the movie asks is how will the issue be settled, in or out of court?

Gable's certainly a mature leading man playing about 15 to 20 years younger than he is, but he carries it off well. And Sophia Loren is wonderful to see.

But the real star of this film is the Isle of Capri, one of the most beautiful spots on this old planet. Capri was getting a lot of publicity from Hollywood. Only a year before Mario Lanza's last film, For the First Time, also was shot a great deal in Capri. After these two films the tourist business must have boomed.

Sophia Loren has a few nice numbers to sing and one of them was the song Americano. It had a revival a few years ago in Matt Damon's The Talented Mr. Ripley. But Sophia's version is soooooooooo much better.

Bright , slight comedy of two stardom heavywights : Gable and Loren . Charming and cheerful movie set in Italy , days before his wedding, a Philadelphia lawyer called Mike Hamilton (Clark Gable) travels to Naples in Southern Italy to settle the estate of his late brother, only to find that he has an Italian nephew who is being cared for by his brother's girlfriend , a cabaret singer (Sophia Loren) who's really volluble with Italian guile and grabbiness. Once there, he discovers that the deceased has left an eight-year old little boy named Nando, who is being raised by Michael's sister-in-law Lucia Curcio. Both of whom squabble over the future of the little boy fast turning into a delinquent amid the dolce vita temptations of a travelogue Italy . Hamilton gets a little unexpected help from the Italian lawyer Mario Vitale (Vittorio de Sicca) . You'll Never See a Movie With More Carefee Fun and Happy Living!. You'll Want to Be There When the Fun Starts!

One-joke romantic comedy in which Gable stiff with hygiene and honesty and gorgeous Loren fall in love , but due to the thorny problem of the adoption a kid things go wrong ; along the way he grows more and more in love for her . Clark Gable is very agreeable as Mike Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer, comes to Naples to settle the estate of his long estranged brother .This was the last movie Clark Gable made that was released during his lifetime , Gable's next to last film "The Misfits" (1961) before his death , he had already had two strokesb, but continued to smoke 60 cigarettes a day. And Sophia Loren is magnificent as brother's widow and sexy nightclub dancer and the film is kept afloat chiefly by Loren's engaging ebullience . And special mention for Vittorio De Sica who gives a stunningly likable acting , he would direct and co write the screenplay for the film (La Ciociara) or "Two Women" which won Sophia Loren an Academy Award for Best Actress . A similar formula was used by director Melville Shavelson himself in "Houseboat" or Cintia (1958) this time with Gary Grant and Sophia Loren. Originally intented as a vehicle for Gracie Fields who was a well-known real-life Capri resident , when financing could not be raised, the storyline was sold to Paramount, and then elaborately re-written so that the Fields character became an American man, Hamilton/Gable.

This agreeable movie was wonderfully photographed in attractive Italian outdoors. In fact , there are lots of Naples and Capri sightseeing , spectacularly shot by great Hollywood cameraman Robert Surtees . Accompanied by an evocative and lively musical score by Alessandro Cicognini and Carlo Savina , and including catching song sung by Sophia Loren herself . The picture was professionally written and directed by Melville Shavelson but it results to be a minor vehicle for the great Clark Gable. Shavelson's movies have a special penchant for recapturing a particular atmosphere , many of his films are about real people but they remain muted in impact . A notorious screenwriter , Bob Hope -whom Shavelson had originally wanted for the lead- and Danny Kaye features Shavelson's pictures when he became filmmaker and his films with them are the most successful such as ¨The seven tittle Foys¨ , "Beau James¨, ¨On the Double¨ and ¨Five pennies¨ . Shavelson's later pictures were made for TV and mostly biographies as ¨The great Houdini¨ , ¨Ike¨, ¨Ike : the war years¨, and ¨The legend of Valentino¨ which remains the best work on the subject to date . Two of the best films turned out to be ¨Cast a giant shadow¨ , an epic movie with all-star-cast dealing with the birth of Israel and ¨Yours , mine and ours¨ his biggest hit . Rating : 7/10. The flick will appeal to Clark Gable and Sofia Loren fans.

This is the penultimate film of the career of Clark Gable, and his last comedy. He is a Philadelphia lawyer named Michael Hamilton, who is about to marry a suitable middle aged woman at home (we never see her), and must delay the marriage while he goes to Naples to settle the estate of his long estranged brother. He is unaware of the details, but his brother was never a hard headed, hard working type - and he had fled to Italy, where he seems to have drowned in an accident. Mike discovers his brother was out fishing with his wife when a sudden squall upset the boat and drowned them. He also discovers his brother lived up to his reputation as a ne'er-do-well by specializing in making great fireworks, and left a little boy named Nando (Marietto). But Nando's mother had a sister named Lucia (Sophia Loren) who appears at a local Capri nightclub. Mike and Lucia find themselves at odds about Nando's present and future lifestyle: Mike wants the boy brought up in America, while Lucia wants him in a happier, earthier life in Italy. Soon Nando, Lucia, Mike, and Mike's lawyer Vitale (Vittorio De Sica) manage to bring the blood uncle and blood aunt into a closer and closer relationship. Eventually they fall in love.

Gable's performance was similar to a middle class "Ugly American" as in the contemporary novel and the movie with Marlon Brando. Mike is a successful lawyer, and he wants his brother's son to get the breaks he needs in good schools and with a normal home. He cannot believe that the little fellow is not degenerating, but is actually in a loving household with Lucia. In the first third of the film Gable makes a lot of snide comments about the easy take it life style he sees around him in Italy. It is only gradually that he realizes that the Italians can be serious when they want, and that there is nothing wrong (as he eventually admits) to being an elderly carriage driver singing "So Long to Sorrento" for his fares' amusement. He also can see that his first choice for marriage is even stuffier than he is, or that there were some really unattractive aspects in his fellow American tourists (witness that final scene in the railway car he is leaving Naples in).

Lucia is also an interesting character - she mistrusts Americans (as her song "Americano" spoofs their foibles), but her own ambitions for success mirror the type of work ethic that is part of the American persona. She also is a realist - she insists that Nando speak English at home, rather than Italian. The reason (aside from the obvious screenplay reason of allowing the audience to understand the conversation) is that English is the international tongue of the modern age. If Nando is to succeed, he has to speak English well. Her affection for her nephew is deep - to the point that she is willing to even consider losing him for his own good.

Nando is trying to find a balance between his aunt and uncle. He loves the aunt, and gets to really like Mike, but he can't understand why Mike can't only leave him with Lucia, and then occasionally visit. When Mike and Lucia become an item (or appear to be one), well that's fine too - they can take up where his parents left off. But he is capable of knowing if something is going wrong. When Mike says he wants to talk to him "man to man" Nando's face drops, and he says he never likes it when he hears "man to man".

Vitale is an interesting supporting character. As the lawyer for Mike's brother he is obliged to tell him what the deceased's estate was (mostly fireworks and Nando). He begins processing Mike's legal moves to get custody of Nando away from Lucia. Lucia confronts Vitale, calling him a traitor to Italy for helping an American steal her nephew, and calling him a pig (as his looks at the sumptuous Lucia/Sophia Loren reveal). His helpless reply is that a man can be both a lawyer and a pig. In the end, in the courtroom, he is so twisted by his loyalties that he cannot give Mike a coherent (or even fair) defense. One can understand his dilemma.

It is a sweet comedy, that holds up very well. It makes one wonder if Gable would have continued in roles like this one had he not died so soon after THE MISFITS.

This will be hard for many film lovers to believe, but I never liked Clark Gable. I've seen some of his classics like "Gone With the Wind" and "It Happened One Night", and I was always turned off by the narcissistic, arrogant jerk he always seemed to play. I only wanted to see this film because I was about to take a trip to Naples and I was hoping for some nice scenery. I was also hoping Gable wouldn't ruin it for me completely.

Jackpot! The combination of the location filming, interesting premise, clever writing, humor, solid supporting performances by Marietto and Vittorio De Sica, and Gable's highly entertaining portrayal of a short-tempered curmudgeon rather than his usual dashing know-it-all really made this film for me. I don't know how many times I've watched it. I even bought the DVD, and I buy very few due to a serious lack of storage space, because I knew I would want to share it.

During the time I spent in Naples I was constantly reminded of things in the movie: fireworks, schedules that are wrong but 'everyone knows it', endless varieties of coffee… this movie really "gets" Naples, and surprisingly some things about it haven't changed all that much in fifty years.

And now that I'm finally feeling well-disposed towards Mr. Gable, maybe I'll have to give some of his other work a second try.

I've just seen this on a beautiful DVD and I want to echo the positive comments. While not the funniest movie ever made it is amusing and a good family-type picture---assuming that families watch this type of picture these days.

What makes it happen for me is seeing Clark Gable and Sophia Loren together on screen with a beautiful background full of Capri Italy, 1960. The story is pretty basic but {like most good movies}provides a framework, plot situations and dialog- a lot of it in Italian, but still understandable- to keep the action moving and show off the Star Power on screen.There is great chemistry between Loren and Gable as well as co-star Vittorio De Sica and the young kid who plays the boy Nando - a star turn at age 10. Charming,amusing with eye-filling scenery and three legendary cinema personalities. Diverting and entertaining.